"Relax," Sterling whispered. "You're at home."
Lucy realized that she'd been digging her fingernails into the upholstery. "Are you relaxed at your parents' home?"
"I suppose you've got a point there."
He touched Lucy's hand just as her mother reappeared with a melamine tray topped with fancy-looking tea cups and a cellophane package of graham crackers. Lucy wanted to die. She had seen Sarah's china many times. This was so far beneath the way Sterling lived, Lucy had half a mind to jump up, drag him out of there and hit the road for St. Caroline pronto.
Sterling accepted a cup of tea and a cracker and let his body sink back into the sofa. He rested one soccer shoe-clad foot on the opposite knee.
"So we ran into Lucy's friend, Laura, just awhile ago," he said.
"Oh Laura, yes. She's opening that yoga studio on Main Street. She had to go to New York or someplace to get her teacher training. Don't know how she and Mike can afford that, on his pay. So you're the CEO of the Inn. Did you know that Lucy went to that camp you have there? The one for uncontrollable kids."
"Mom!" And to think she had hoped to avoid the subject of the camp this weekend. Well, her mother had no idea how much of a sore point the camp was between herself and Sterling.
"Yes, I believe I did know that." Sterling nudged Lucy's knee with his.
"Saved my life, I'll tell you. That girl sitting next to you was hell on wheels as a teenager. She ran around with older kids, stayed out all night, didn't pay attention to school. If she'd continued on that path, she'd have been barefoot and pregnant in high school."
"Oh my god," Lucy moaned.
"So the camp had that much impact?" Sterling said.
"Honestly, I didn't expect much from it. But I needed a vacation from Lucy—sorry, hon, but I did."
Lucy threw up her hands.
"So I signed her up and drove her to the bus pickup. She came back to me a changed girl. Like night and day."
"What do you think changed her?" Sterling probed.
"Honestly, I have no idea. I've never been to your fine resort. But somehow you succeeded where I couldn't." Lucy's mother set down her tea cup. "Guys, I hate to rush you out, but I've got girls poker afternoon today and I need to shower and get ready."
At the door, Sterling reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a business card. He handed it to Lucy's mother.
"Mrs. Hahn, I'd love to have you as a guest as the Inn. My compliments. When it's convenient for you, give me a call and I'll make all the arrangements. My direct line is on here."
Sterling watched Lucy pick at her McDonald's salad, pushing lettuce around aimlessly with her fork. Personally, he was starving. He bit into his Big Mac with gusto.
When he swallowed, he said, "You know, St. Caroline didn't have a McDonald's when I was little."
"You were horribly deprived." Lucy finally lifted a forkful of lettuce to her mouth. "Lost Cave didn't either."
"There you go. Our childhoods were more similar than you thought."
A wry smile spread across Lucy's face, but her eyes were still sad. Other than that brief, peaceful moment in the yoga studio, Lucy's mood had vacillated between quiet wariness and exasperated embarrassment all weekend. She was ashamed of all this, he realized. That was where their childhoods parted ways—well, they parted ways almost everywhere—but he had never been ashamed of St. Caroline. He hadn't wanted to live there, but he wouldn't be uncomfortable taking someone to visit. Lucy was uncomfortable in her hometown.
Outside, cars and trucks buzzed by on the highway. Another five hours and they would be home. Home. Well, I wouldn't want to live here, he thought, but neither did he think Lost Cave was the huge boil on her face Lucy seemed to think it was. The people had seemed decent enough, just not with that many opportunities.
Lucy was staring out the window, her fork pointed at nothing in the air. He studied her profile. How he wanted to reach out and place his hand on her cheek. I've fallen hard.
Oh, the stories he could tell her about the Inn. Contrary to her idealized image, not all of the guests had been decent people. He had seen a lot as a child. More than a child should witness, even a wealthy child. Blistering arguments between couples. Icy silence at dinner tables. The wife and kids one week, the mistress the next.
"How did you do that?" she asked suddenly, putting down her fork.
"Do what?" He was startled out of the past.
"Get along with my mother."
Sterling took a sip of his soda. "Why do you ask that? Don't you get along with her?"
Lucy shrugged. "More or less. But you don't spend much time with people like—" Lucy waved her arm aimlessly in the air.
"Lucy. I grew up in a hotel, with hundreds of complete strangers coming through my life every single week. I could make conversation with anyone by the time I was five years old. I can find something in common with anyone."
A short laugh escaped from Lucy's lips. "What, exactly, do you have in common with my mother?"
"You."
"I notice you failed to mention that, as CEO, you fired me and that I'm now unemployed."
"I didn't know whether you had told your mother about that or not. She didn't say anything, so I blithely ignored the issue. Have you told your mother about that?"
"No. In her eyes, it's bad enough that I'm divorced—and that's been five years, mind you. Divorced and unemployed? I'd never hear the end of that."
Sterling was quiet for awhile. Lucy went back to staring out the window.
"Did the camp really make that big a difference?"
Lucy said nothing at first. Then she turned and looked at the people working behind the counter and the cash registers. "I'd probably be working here."
"I'd like to offer you your job back, Lucy."
Lucy's head snapped back to the table. "I don't want my job back."
"Why not?"
"Well, for starters, what's to say you won't just fire me again? And I don't want to work at the Inn if Douglas isn't there. Even if you give me my job back, he still loses his next month, right?"
"Why did he tackle me last weekend at your house?" He rubbed his jaw where Douglas had hit him.
"I think he was presented with an opportunity to finally pound you, and he took it."
Sterling recalled the tale of Douglas' teenaged boast. So was Lucy, evidently. He watched her eyes darken and she looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time all day. Her eyes dropped down to his chest, just for an instant, but Sterling saw it. Did she realize how little it took to stoke the growing fire inside him? Just from this, a look, and the flame sizzled up his spine
"He waited around for me, you know, to make sure I got back to the camp safely," she said at long last.
"Did he? I guess we weren't as good at sneaking around as we thought we were."
Sterling balled up his sandwich wrapper and tossed it back and forth between his hands a few times, then set it back down on the orange tray.
"I'm glad you brought me here, Lucy," he started. "And you were right. I'll probably never really get what it's like to grow up in a place like Lost Cave. And I don't know what it took for you, as a teenager, to pull a one-eighty in your life the way you did. But I met that teenager, you know. I liked her. And there's still quite a bit of her in you."
Chapter 23
Lucy was sitting, cross-legged, on the floor in her bedroom. She was wearing her improvised painting outfit, a stretched out tee shirt from college and grey sweatpants that she had cut off mid-thigh to make shorts. The sweet-sharp smell of latex paint filled her nostrils as she meticulously brushed paint onto the baseboards. When she finished, they would be a fresh gleaming white.
Lucy had no idea what the excursion to Lost Cave had settled for Sterling. It must have settled something because the silence since then was deafening. Was it too much to expect a phone call, an email? Even a measly text? At least she had gotten a kiss out of the concert and that was far less personal than a trip to her homet
own and a visit with her mother. And okay, she could admit it. Her ego got a little bruised when Sterling had handed her that second room key.
When it came to Sterling Matthew, Lucy no longer knew up from down.
She finished one length of baseboard and moved her tarp and bucket of paint around to the next wall.
Lucy hadn't expected a trip home to settle anything for her, but it had anyway. Running into Laura Hagel had been pure serendipity. Standing in that huge empty space, Lucy had been able to see a future for herself—and a future that kept her in St. Caroline.
When the yoga studio in St. Caroline closed, it wasn't for lack of business. The owner married and moved to her new husband's city. No one else had opened a yoga studio in town since then and the space still sat empty and unleased. Why couldn't Lucy open a studio there? The thought of another job where she just sat in an office made her heart ache.
But first, she was going to have to leave.
She had stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, researching teacher certification programs online. There was a yoga center in upstate New York that had an intensive six-week program and it was starting in August. She would rent out her cottage—with a fresh coat of paint—for the rest of the summer, while she was in New York. The month's rent would pay for the certification course.
And maybe a month away would dim Sterling Matthew's sparkle. I want him. And I know I can't have him. A girl like Lucy Hahn couldn't have had a boy like Sterling Matthew when she was a teenager. And she couldn't have him now. The privileged boy and the underprivileged girl.
Lucy moved outside and was swiping paint onto the porch railing when a pickup truck pulled up in front of her cottage. It was Douglas' truck. She watched as he walked around the back of the truck and opened the passenger door, helping an older gentleman step down from the seat.
Lucy put down her paintbrush and wiped her hands on her sweatpant shorts. Douglas and the gentleman came up the stairs.
"Be careful where you touch," Lucy cautioned. "I have wet paint everywhere."
"Okay," Douglas said, looking around and clearly puzzled. "Lucy, this is Mr. George Adams. Mr. Adams owns that beautiful estate on the other side of the Inn's property."
Oh yes. Lucy knew the one. Douglas' look of puzzlement had turned to a merry smirk.
"Oh, the white house with the big columns?" Lucy said, trying to keep her face arranged in a neutral expression and trying not to look at Douglas.
"And the cute boathouse," he added.
"Yes, that's the one," George Adams affirmed.
The Adams estate was one of the largest in-town estates. The house was a bonafide mansion with a wide green lawn that sloped gently down to the water and the private dock. Every spring, the front lawn was ablaze with masses of pink and purple azaleas. And of course, it was on the water with a private dock and boathouse.
George Adams cleared his throat. "I would like to donate my estate to the Inn."
Lucy looked over at Douglas in confusion. Why would George Adams be announcing this to her? She didn't even work at the Inn anymore, a fact he might not be aware but Douglas certainly was.
Mr. Adams continued. "But on one condition. The property has to be used for the camp."
"You want to ..." Lucy's voice trailed off. Had she just heard what she thought she did? The man wanted to donate his land to the camp? "Why?"
"My grandchildren prefer the beach and the livelier atmosphere of Ocean City, so I am buying a home there. I want to be able to spend as much time with them while I'm still kicking."
Lucy swayed on her feet. She felt a little woozy.
"You want to just give your property away? I mean, the house and land—waterfront—are worth millions." Lucy needed to confirm what she'd just heard.
"I don't need the money. I've already set aside money for my children and grandchildren. They don't need more than I'm giving them. In my opinion anyway," he smiled. "I always enjoyed seeing the kids at the camp swimming and boating in the summer. They were so full of joy and excitement. And just, abandon. It always took me back to my childhood, watching them. I think it's terrible that the Inn is closing the camp. John would not have done that."
"What do you think, Lucy? Would Sterling be open to that? Donated land for the camp?" Douglas asked. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, barely containing his excitement.
"And let me be clear," George Adams said. "I will only donate the property if it is used for the camp. Otherwise, I will sell it and give the proceeds to the charities I support."
Lucy bit her lip and thought. "I don't know, guys. He might. But I don't work—"
George Adams turned to Douglas. "Let's show her the property."
"Do you have time?" Douglas asked Lucy.
"Sure. I've been taking lots of field trips lately. Just let me put the lid on my paint and change into clean clothes."
George Adams' estate was as stunning close up and it was from a distance. It was quiet and peaceful. Breezes rustled the leaves of the old oak and maple trees. The bay lapped gently at the shoreline. The sound was so evenly rhythmic, almost hypnotic. Lucy was drawn toward it and she began to stroll down the wide green lawn to the water.
Douglas grasped her arm. "Let's go look at the house first."
Lucy followed Douglas and George Adams up the wide steps onto the house's wide porch. The porch was painted a glossy white and wrapped all the way around the house. Lucy followed it around, checking out the views from every angle. From this corner, sailboats dotted the bay. From another, she could see a pine needle-covered walking path that led to the boathouse.
"A little further along that path is a newish swimming pool. Only about three years old," Douglas pointed out.
Lucy ignored the pause. "A pool? That would be better for swimming lessons, wouldn't it?"
Douglas nodded, smiling so wide Lucy thought his face might be in danger of cracking. "Wait 'til you see inside. You won't believe it."
Douglas war right. Lucy could hardly believe what she saw. The rooms were spacious and many. There could be an office here, a nurse's room there. There was plenty of space for the kids to hang out on rainy days. Lucy ran her hand over a velvet-covered settee.
"We'd have to do a little redecorating," Douglas said.
Lucy smiled, feeling as dazed as Douglas looked. When she was a child, this was how she had imagined wealthy people all lived. In large, elegant, gracious homes like this one. She walked slowly through the rooms on the first floor, turning 360 degrees in the middle of each one to take in everything. The furnishings, the luxurious silks and linens, the elaborate moldings, the obviously expensive rugs on the floors.
She followed Douglas and George Adams through a long butler's pantry and emerged into a gigantic room. It took Lucy a minute to realize that she was standing in a kitchen, it was so large. She panned the room with her head, trying to take it all in. Two commercial-sized refrigerators, a commercial grade range, dual dishwashers, dual islands and dual sinks.
"I'm not much of a cook," George explained. "But my wife was an enthusiastic cook when she was alive. We used to throw large dinner parties and we never catered a single one. She did all the cooking herself."
Even more than the kitchen, Lucy marveled at the note of pride she heard in George Adams' voice as he spoke of his wife. Imagine, she thought, to be married for decades and still be proud of one's spouse.
"These would be plenty big for the camp's needs," Douglas said.
Lucy nodded silently. This kitchen would easily accommodate the camp's needs. The camp had always had to scrounge for space in the Inn's kitchen to store pre-made sandwiches and sodas, always had to plot elaborate menu schedules to make sure the Inn's cooks would have time to make french fries or crabcakes on a particular day. With this kitchen, the camp would have all the storage space it would need. Maybe the kids could even do some of their food prep and cooking in here.
"What's upstairs?" she asked.
"Seven bedrooms and seven baths
. The attic I converted to a painting studio for my wife twenty years ago. Full heat and air conditioning," George Adams answered.
"Are you sure you don't want to sell this?" she asked. "Your children don't want the money?"
"I'm one hundred percent sure, Ms. Wyndham. My children would love to have the money but they don't want the property. My wife and I cherished this place for so many years. Honestly, I wouldn't want just anyone buying it and living here. I wouldn't want the place to be sold and occupied over and over—or rented out. I know the Inn would take care of it and there would be some continuity there. The property would be part of the community."
Lucy looked at George Adams as if he were an angel. An angel in plaid golf shorts and a white polo shirt.
"I'm going to walk down to the water for awhile," George said. "You two look around and discuss it."
"Like it's our decision," Lucy said after George left. She watched him stroll across the lawn, down to the water.
"I think he wanted to gauge my interest first," Douglas said. "People in St. Caroline still aren't too sure of Sterling. There's a reluctance to deal with him directly."
Would Sterling ever be able to overcome his father's legacy, Lucy wondered. Would people ever trust him the way they did John?
"The camp could be a lot bigger if it were here," Douglas said.
"You could serve more kids."
"Sterling could even use this place in the winter for Inn events. Maybe if he could make some money off this property, he'd be okay with ..." Douglas' voice trailed off. He hung his head, looking at his shoes.
It was evident how badly Douglas wanted this property for the camp. Lucy had never seen tough guy Douglas cry—couldn't even imagine him crying—but she could tell by his uneven breathing that he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. Maybe even struggling not to get his hopes up. Lucy wished fervently that he wasn't too attached to the idea already. She honestly couldn't say whether or not Sterling would be open to moving the camp here, even with the prospect of making money off the property in the winter months.
Fallling for the Prodigal Son Page 15
